THE ART OF THE. Guitar. Great Guitar Concertos. Rodrigo Villa-Lobos Castelnuovo-Tedesco Giuliani Ponce Vivaldi Fasch Weiss Edwards.

Transcription

1 THE ART OF THE Guitar Great Guitar Concertos Rodrigo Villa-Lobos Castelnuovo-Tedesco Giuliani Ponce Vivaldi Fasch Weiss Edwards Bračanin Rigney

2 CD1 [74 03] JOAQUÍN RODRIGO Concierto de Aranjuez [22 45] 1 I. Allegro con spirito II. Adagio III. Allegro gentile 4 55 Karin Schaupp guitar, Dinah Woods cor anglais 2, Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra, Benjamin Northey conductor SILVIUS LEOPOLD WEISS Arr. Eduard Grigoryan after the arrangement by Siegfried Behrend Concerto in D minor for Guitar and String Orchestra [9 22] 4 I. Largo II. Allegro III. Allegro molto IV. Largo V. Presto 1 38 Slava Grigoryan guitar, Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra, Benjamin Northey conductor MAURO GIULIANI Cadenzas by Mario Gangi Guitar Concerto No. 1 in A major, Op. 30 [22 28] 9 I. Allegro maestoso II. Andantino (Siciliano) 6 13! III. Polonaise (Allegretto) 6 47 Pepe Romero guitar, Academy of St Martin in the Fields, Neville Marriner conductor HEITOR VILLA-LOBOS Guitar Concerto [19 I. Allegro preciso 5 36 II. Andantino e andante 8 45 $ III. Allegretto non troppo 4 44 Slava Grigoryan guitar, Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra, Benjamin Northey conductor 2 CD2 [68 58] ANTONIO VIVALDI Arr. Gian Francesco Malipiero , from the original concerto for two mandolins Concerto in G major for Two Guitars, RV532 [12 01] 1 I. Allegro II. Andante III. Allegro 3 54 Slava Grigoryan and Leonard Grigoryan guitars, Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra, Benjamin Northey conductor JOHANN FASCH Arr. Ruggero Chiesa , from the original concerto for lute Guitar Concerto in D minor [15 25] 4 I. [Allegretto moderato] II. Andante III. Un poco allegro 3 41 Slava Grigoryan guitar, Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra, Benjamin Northey conductor JOAQUÍN RODRIGO Fantasía para un gentilhombre [22 29] 7 I. Villano y ricercare (Adagietto Andante moderato) II. Españoleta e fanfare de la caballería de Napoles (Adagio Allegretto Tempo de españoleta) III. Danza de las hachas (Allegro con brio) IV. Canario (Allegro ma non troppo) 7 13 Leonard Grigoryan guitar, The Queensland Orchestra, Brett Kelly conductor ROSS EDWARDS b.1943 Concerto for Guitar and Strings [18 38]! I. First Maninya 5 II. Arafura Arioso 7 38 III. Second Maninya 5 18 Karin Schaupp guitar, Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra, Richard Mills conductor 3

3 CD3 [65 47] ANTONIO VIVALDI Arr. Siegfried Behrend, from the original concerto for lute Guitar Concerto in D major, RV93 [11 17] 1 I. Allegro II. Largo III. Allegro 2 14 Slava Grigoryan guitar, Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra, Benjamin Northey conductor JOAQUÍN RODRIGO Concierto madrigal [33 27] 4 I. Fanfarre (Allegro marziale) II. Madrigal (Andante nostalgico) III. Entrada (Allegro vivace) IV. Pastorcico, tú que vienes, Pastorcico, tú que vas (Allegro vivace) V. Giradilla (Presto) VI. Pastoral (Allegretto) VII. Fandango (Molto ritmico) 2 18! VIII. Arietta (Andante nostalgico) 6 IX. Zapateado (Allegro vivace) 5 57 X. Caccia a la española (Allegro vivace Andante nostalgico) 4 57 Slava Grigoryan and Leonard Grigoryan guitars, The Queensland Orchestra, Brett Kelly conductor CD4 [67 41] PHILIP BRAČANIN b.1942 Guitar Concerto [22 48] 1 I. Allegro assai II. Doloroso III. Allegro vivace 5 32 Karin Schaupp guitar, Queensland Symphony Orchestra, Ronald Spigelman conductor SHAUN RIGNEY b.1960 Lapis Lazuli Concerto for Guitar and Orchestra [20 37] 4 I. Sonata da camera II. Toccata III. Cantabile IV. Finale 5 09 Slava Grigoryan guitar, Mara Miller violin, Orchestra Victoria, Brett Kelly conductor MANUEL PONCE Concierto del sur [24 00] 8 I. Allegretto II. Andante III. Allegro moderato e festivo 5 28 Eduardo Fernández guitar, English Chamber Orchestra, Enrique García Asensio conductor MARIO CASTELNUOVO-TEDESCO Guitar Concerto No. 1 in D major [20 47] $ I. Allegretto 6 37 % II. Andantino: Alla romanza 7 57 ^ III. Ritmico e cavalleresco 6 13 Nicola Hall guitar, London Mozart Players, Andrew Litton conductor 4 5

4 There is an odd, patchy pattern to the story of the guitar in Western classical music. Although it has been in widespread popular use for centuries, when it comes to art music, it seems as if there has been a veil of suspicion or prejudice towards the guitar that has only lifted at certain times and in certain places. At those moments in history when that veil has lifted, and the guitar has received classical acceptance, beautiful pieces of music have been the result, and we can be thankful for a rich repertoire of music that has made the classical guitar an instrument of global appeal. But before delving into that fascinating, contentious topic, we should, first of all, consider the amorphous beginnings and evolution of the guitar. The journey presented in this collection of concertos begins before the guitar even existed, in the form we would recognise today. The guitar concertos of Vivaldi, Weiss and Fasch are adaptations made by later generations of composers and players who, wanting to build a larger repertoire for the instrument, turned to music from earlier periods that had been written for other forms of plucked string instruments. There were a number to choose from: the cittern, the mandolin, and the instrument that had established itself as one of the most important in Renaissance music, the lute. As Curt Sachs points out in his classic 1940 History of Musical Instruments, the lute was superseded not so much by the guitar as by the harpsichord, which from the early 1700s took over the lute s function in harmonising and providing a continuous musical accompaniment. But with that replacement, there was a loss: portability, for one thing, but also the physical relationship between player and instrument which is so characteristic of the lute, the way it blended with the player s body and reflected his every feeling by the directness of the touch in playing. The instrument that could fill this role was the guitar albeit in its underpowered Baroque form. Despite its limitations, says Sachs, the instrument made inroads beyond its Hispano-Italian base to overrun the aristocratic world of France, where it seems that les Italiens, the Italian actors in Paris, brought it into fashion. Painters à la mode, like Watteau and Boucher, depicted it in the hands of both comedians and ladies of high society. So, it became popular, but hardly an instrument of serious possibilities: Sachs feels no need to remind us that comedians and society ladies were not the stuff that great masterpieces come from. But the amateur interest in the guitar drove the innovations in design which produced the modern classical instrument, making it easier to tune, stronger in tone, and more agile in response to the player s hand. The stage was set, you might think, for the guitar to be accorded classical acceptance, but that was still a long way off. Until well into the 20th century, the guitar faced a wall of indifference from the agents of classical culture. That indifference had much to do with the instrument s Mediterranean origins. Of all countries, it was in Spain that the guitar was a part of the way of life, and Spanish music has traversed a long, slow journey to move from the fringes into the mainstream of classical music. In 1891, the prominent German music critic Eduard Hanslick declared that hardly any other civilised nation in music history has erected so few milestones and left behind so few traces, as the Spanish. Israeli musicologist Judith Etzion cites this and a litany of other negative evaluations to show that Spanish music has been pictured as backward and unimportant among the musical cultures of Europe. She connects these evaluations back to ideas like Voltaire s comment (referring to Spain s long Moorish occupation) that Africa begins at the Pyrenees, and the notion of the Black Legend, a term coined in 1914 to encompass all the negative characterisations of an inquisitional, ignorant, and fanatic Spain incapable of taking its place among cultivated peoples either now or in the past. Attitudes towards the guitar reflected this bias: though the instrument attained huge popularity across all of Spain s social classes, it was viewed with disdain beyond the Mediterranean zone because it was considered to have Moorish origins. Sir John Hawkins, for instance, in his General History of the Science and Practice of Music of 1776, suggested that Spain s slow progress...may in some degree be accounted for by the prevalence of Moorish manners and customs for many centuries in that country. The Spanish guitar is no other than the Arabian Pandora [the Renaissance cittern] a little improved; and it is notorious that most of the Spanish dances are of Moorish or Arabian original. In music, the Black Legend represents a prejudice against the way that Spanish music has kept a vital relation between its folk traditions and its classical musical life. Where the Western mainstream established a Great Divide between popular and classical expression, in Spain this polarisation was nowhere near as extreme and the two currents have, in general, continued to refer to one another. As Etzion observes, Spanish music was judged incompatible with the transcendent Romantic experience of German instrumental music Certainly Spanish popular music was considered evanescent [ephemeral] by nature and therefore could not be dignified as high art. The theory certainly helps to explain why nearly all classical guitar music is Spanish, Italian or French. But while there may have been a time when such prejudice cast a domineering shadow over the 6 7

5 musical landscape, that time has thankfully passed. The guitar s popularity is no longer something to be disdained, but rather to be celebrated as a source of vitality and power. Given this context, it is easy to appreciate the crusading zeal of guitarists throughout the 19th and 20th centuries, working for a true appreciation of their instrument and of their own skills. They worked unrelentingly to bring about the guitar s elevation to serious attention and respect. One of their main strategies was to draw upon pre-existing repertoires for similar instruments that could be adapted easily to performance on the guitar music which belonged predominantly to the Renaissance and Baroque eras, before keyboard instruments began to dominate professional and domestic music-making. Antonio Vivaldi is widely acknowledged as the inventor of the Baroque concerto, and as a prodigious writer of works in this form. The vast majority of his concertos are for violin, but they also encompass a wide range of instruments and instrumental combinations, including the lute and the mandolin. The joke, attributed to Stravinsky, that Vivaldi wrote the same concerto 500 times doesn t acknowledge the great variety of ways that Vivaldi adapted the form in colour and dynamic movement. But during the 19th century, Vivaldi s music had descended into total obscurity, making a comeback only after the Italian composer Alfredo Casella launched a revival in Gian Francesco Malipiero was a close friend of Casella s and shared his sense of mission for the restoration of neglected Italian masters. It was a reflection of the fervent nationalism which also led them, less happily, to admiration for Il Duce. Malipiero devoted his compositional skills not so much to the recovery of historical authenticity, but rather to the re-versioning of musical beauties like the Concerto for Two Mandolins, so that they could be brought back into contemporary musical existence. The Lute Concerto in D major owes its existence as a guitar work to the colourful 20th-century guitarist Siegfried Behrend. Many listeners will remember his name from the glossy covers of Deutsche Grammophon LPs of the 1960s and 70s. A self-taught guitarist, Behrend delighted in transgressing musical boundaries. He launched his own campaign for the due appreciation of the guitar (and mandolin) through every available means, crossing the divides between popular and high art, and between professional and amateur performers. Johann Friedrich Fasch had the misfortune to be born three years after JS Bach. It didn t affect him so much during his lifetime, but posthumously, his was one of the many reputations that lingered in the shadow cast by Bach s eminence. Fasch spent most of his life in a town called Zerbst: the place was a bit too strictly Lutheran for his tastes, but he had plenty of opportunity to write, not only for the local music community, but also through a network of colleagues around Germany. He is mostly credited as a transitional figure, incorporating some elements of the new Classical thematic way of composing into his fundamentally Baroque style. The concerto, in the form developed by Vivaldi, was a very popular format for Fasch: he wrote 64 of them for a wide range of instruments, reflecting a certain level of curiosity for different sounds and textures in his music. Fasch s Lute Concerto was adapted for the modern guitar by Ruggero Chiesa, a guitarist and teacher who formed a close association with the Italian publishing house of Suivini Zerboni, and made more than 120 arrangements, transcriptions, versions and editions for guitar, mostly of early music, for their catalogue. Silvius Leopold Weiss was the crowning glory of a family of German lutenists, regarded as the instrument s greatest virtuoso of the day, both as a performer and composer. Weiss was a colleague of JS Bach, his almost exact contemporary; Bach visited Dresden quite often (to see his son Wilhelm Friedemann), and was inspired by Weiss s artistry on the lute. Weiss s several volumes of Sonatas and Partitas stand as the lutenist s equivalent to the Bach Sonatas and Partitas for violin and the Keyboard Sonatas of Scarlatti. His concertos for the instrument survive in sketchy form, requiring a highly sympathetic touch in arranging, such as they have been given here by Eduard Grigoryan, father of the soloist, Slava. Perhaps the earliest hero of the modern classical guitar was Mauro Giuliani. After establishing his reputation in his native Italy, Giuliani embarked upon a European tour, eventually landing in Vienna, where his concerts earned him a place among the city s musical elite. Giuliani built his repertoire himself composing it, that is, and occasionally persuading friends to write for him. At the peak of his Viennese celebrity, in 1808, Guiliani presented his most ambitious composition: the first of four Grand Concerts for guitar accompanied by orchestra (or in reduced form with an instrumental quartet). The Concerto No. 1 combines an Italian affection for catchy tunes with the compositional method of Viennese Classical style. Giuliani returned to Italy in 1819, but his influence in promoting the guitar beyond the Mediterranean world continued, inspiring the first periodical devoted to the guitar and its music in London, The Giulianiad. Upon his death, the magazine s editor lamented: In him, the little world of guitar players have lost their idol. 8 9

6 That little world consisted mainly of amateurs performing in their domestic environments, but all that was to change with the appearance of the guitar s great maestro, Andrés Segovia ( ). Bursting onto the musical scene during the 1920s, Segovia exerted great charisma and boundless energy, single-handedly inspiring a new respect and passion for the classical guitar, galvanizing composers, audiences and musicians to a new enthusiasm for the instrument. Composers of Hispanic connection or background were especially drawn to Segovia s bright-burning candle. The first great success of the concertos written for Segovia was that by the Italian Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco. Famed as a teacher of composition, the list of his former students incorporates Nelson Riddle, André Previn, Jerry Goldsmith and John Williams. He also contributed music to 200 movies after settling in Hollywood, in exile from the Italian Fascist regime. Segovia had befriended Castelnuovo-Tedesco in 1932, but it was not until 1938 that he commissioned the concerto. The commission came at the darkest moment in the composer s life, when he was being forced out of Italy because of his Jewish heritage. Segovia s gesture gave Castelnuovo-Tedesco the strength of reassurance that helped him rebuild his life in the US. The concerto he provided is a masterly application of neo-classical technique, and Segovia wasted no time in giving its premiere performance, a few months after it was completed in January Two years later, Segovia s call attracted Manuel Ponce, a Mexican who had studied composition in Bologna and Berlin before returning home to pursue his mission to bring Mexico s great folk traditions, especially in song, to new life. In his orchestral music, Ponce brings together his nationalist inspiration with the musical sophistication of impressionism and early modernism. He had the rare capacity for pursuing advanced technique without sacrificing his feeling for the popular musical soul, a feeling demonstrated by his famous song Estrellita. In a convincing display of the instrument s capabilities, the three movements of Ponce s Concierto del sur (Concerto of the South) move from an exposition of the guitar s expressive variety to impassioned romanticism before culminating in an exuberant fiesta. Segovia gave the work s premiere in Montevideo in These were heady days for the guitar. Segovia s encouragement inspired a group of concertos which suddenly took the guitar to centre stage. In 1951, it was the turn of the great Brazilian composer, Heitor Villa-Lobos. Villa-Lobos had begun his musical life as a guitarist still considered even in Brazil as an instrument of low culture. His career as a composer was marked by a trademark fusion of elements of popular style with 'classical' techniques, as evidenced in the famous series of Bachianas brasileiras, pieces where Bach is imagined to have visited Brazil... For his Guitar Concerto, Villa-Lobos makes rich treatment of thematic material that recalls the character of Brazilian folk tunes, without directly quoting any. The concerto is distinguished by the long cadenza in the second movement the first time that the instrument was given such a prominent solo focus in a concerto setting. Ironically, it was the one concerto that Segovia did not actually commission that was to attain the status of the greatest ever written for the instrument. Joaquín Rodrigo s Concierto de Aranjuez (1939) was inspired by a highly poetic sense of his Spanish identity, and takes its name from a beautiful old summer palace south of Madrid. Given the time and place of its creation (during Spain s bloody Civil War), the composer s preoccupation with gentleness seems especially profound: All through the veins of Spanish music, a profound rhythmic beat seems to be diffused by a strange phantasmagoric, colossal and multiform instrument an instrument idealised in the fiery imaginations of Albéniz, Granados, Falla and Turina. It is an imaginary instrument which might be said to possess the wings of the harp, the heart of the grand piano, and the soul of the guitar. The Aranjuez Concerto is meant to sound like the hidden breeze that stirs the tree tops in the parks, and it should be only as strong as a butterfly and as dainty as a little flower [veronica]. The Concerto s impact in the postwar world was nothing short of sensational, feeding a deep need for a music of romance, elegance and nostalgia amidst the radical spirit of progress. Guitarists pursued Rodrigo for works which could further tap the rich vein that had been discovered in Aranjuez. In 1958, Segovia finally premiered its sequel, the Fantasía para un gentilhombre (Fantasia for a Gentleman), based on music by the 17th-century guitarist and composer Gaspar Sanz ( ). Segovia had introduced Rodrigo to the music of this obscure court composer, who had written manuals and studies for the Baroque guitar. The concerto is an evocation of a noble, refined ancient Spain, the antithesis of the Black Legend : Rodrigo stylishly preserves the simple sophistication and delicacy of the original. A deep historical sensibility also informs Rodrigo s Concierto madrigal, this time featuring two guitar soloists. The ten movements suggest a suite, though the instruments are treated very much in a concerto-like way. Each movement adopts a poetic character derived from a different aspect or inspiration of either ancient or folkloric origin. It was premiered by the famous guitarist brothers Ángel and Pepe Romero at the Hollywood Bowl in

7 Greatly aided by the contributions of the generation of Ponce, Castelnuovo-Tedesco and Rodrigo, the guitar attained its rightful place of honour as a popular classical instrument. Its capabilities and many characters have since been richly explored by composers of diverse backgrounds and styles, not the least by Australian composers. Philip Bračanin is Emeritus Professor of Music at The University of Queensland, where he was the Dean of the Faculty of Music and Head of the School of Music for many years. He is well known for his concertos for various instruments, including the popular Guitar Concerto written for Australian guitarist Karin Schaupp in Bračanin describes the concerto as being in unashamedly neo-classic style. The guitar is prominent throughout, its delicacy and agility brought to the fore against a discreet but colourful orchestral accompaniment. Shaun Rigney was inspired by a deep knowledge of and respect for the guitar s rich heritage in composing his love letter to the instrument, the concerto Lapis Lazuli. The evocation of the ultramarine pigment beloved of Renaissance painters signifies for the composer the guitar s remarkable ancestry. In this way the piece can be regarded as a poetic travelogue traversing that history, a history still unfolding Structurally, the concerto is a mosaic of variations, the themes arising from material contained in the first few pages. Ross Edwards is one of Australia s most admired composers. In the 1980s, he resolved his long personal quest for a musical language that could serve as a richer, more engaging alternative to conventional modernism by inventing his own style known as maninya. Characterised by dancing rhythms contrasted with longer chanting lines and drones, the style is evident in his Guitar Concerto, which features a soulful adagio flanked by two pulsating dances. The inspiration for the work is to be found in Edwards deep love of the Australian bush: I always had before me Ian Morris photograph of a gloriously flowering Red Bud Mallee against a deep blue sky, he recalls. The concerto was premiered in evocative surroundings at the Darwin International Guitar Festival of 1995, with the great Australian guitarist John Williams as soloist. Executive Producers Robert Patterson, Laura Bell Mastering Thomas Grubb, Mano Musica Publications Editor Natalie Shea Booklet Design Imagecorp Pty Ltd Cover Photo Sergey Galushko / Veer The Malipiero arrangement of Vivaldi s double concerto RV532 is published by G. Ricordi & C. Editori Milano. The Behrend arrangement of Vivaldi s concerto RV93 is published by Hans Sikorski, Hamburg. The Chiesa arrangement of Fasch s concerto is published by Edizioni Suvini Zerboni S.p.A. Milano. Rodrigo s Concierto de Aranjuez, Fantasía para un gentilhombre and Concierto madrigal and Castelnuovo- Tedesco s Guitar Concerto No. 1 are published by Schott, Mainz. Ponce s Concierto del sur is published by Southern Music Publ. Co. (A'asia). Villa-Lobos Guitar Concerto is published by Max Eschig. Ross Edwards Concerto for Guitar and Strings is published by G. Ricordi & Co. (London). Philip Bračanin s Guitar Concerto is published by Maecenas Music. ABC Classics thanks Andrew Delaney, Dux Newton, Jonathan Villanueva and Virginia Read. CD1 9-!, CD3 $-^, CD4 8-0 licensed courtesy of Universal Music Australia Pty Limited CD4 8-0; 1993 CD3 $-^ Decca Music Group Limited CD1 9-! Universal International Music B.V CD4 1-3; 2004 CD2!-, CD4 4-7; 2005 CD2 7-0, CD3 4- ; 2008 CD1 4-8, CD2 1-6, CD3 1-3; 2009 CD1 1-3; 2012 Australian Broadcasting Corporation. This compilation was first published in 2012 and any and all copyright in this compilation is owned by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation Australian Broadcasting Corporation. Distributed in Australia by Universal Music Group, under exclusive licence. Made in Australia. All rights of the owner of copyright reserved. Any copying, renting, lending, diffusion, public performance or broadcast of this record without the authority of the copyright owner is prohibited. James Koehne 12 13

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